


In Accord, Finale - The bow and the sword

by ninemoons42



Series: In Accord [9]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Archery, Assassins & Hitmen, Boss Fight, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Art, Inspired by Music, M/M, Medieval Medicine, Redemption, Swords & Fencing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:07:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42





	In Accord, Finale - The bow and the sword

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tybalt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tybalt/gifts), [nekosmuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nekosmuse/gifts).



title: In Accord, Finale - The bow and the sword  
author: [](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**ninemoons42**](http://ninemoons42.dreamwidth.org/)  
word count: approx. 4950 in this installment  
fandom: X-Men: First Class [movieverse]  
characters: Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr, Jean Grey, Scott Summers, Sean Cassidy  
rating: NC-17 for violence and mentions of dubcon/sexual abuse.  
notes: Continuing from [this](http://jamesorangecat.tumblr.com/post/15666553689/this-is-for-the-lovely-k-a-belated-holidays-gift), and [this](http://fassyfaceavoythere.tumblr.com/post/15721726522/charles-stops-and-looks-him-straight-in-the-eyes). [Part One](http://archiveofourown.org/works/331285), [Part Two](http://archiveofourown.org/works/334798), [Part Three](http://archiveofourown.org/works/341335), [Part Four](http://archiveofourown.org/works/345593), [Part Five](http://archiveofourown.org/works/349325), [Part Six](http://archiveofourown.org/works/359132), [Part Seven](http://archiveofourown.org/works/363812), [Part Eight](http://archiveofourown.org/works/368140). These are not the Charles and Erik you think you know.  
Finished at last! Now that the story is complete, thanks go to the following: to the amazing [jamesorangecat](http://jamesorangecat.tumblr.com) and to [keio](http://kannibal.tumblr.com) for the beautiful art that inspired the story; to [czarnyma](http://czarnyma.tumblr.com) for [a lovely portrait of this fic's Charles](http://czarnyma.tumblr.com/post/19675300234/archer-charles-for-ninemoons-in-accord-series).  
This chapter is dedicated to [](http://tybalt1701.livejournal.com/profile)[**tybalt1701**](http://tybalt1701.livejournal.com/) , patient and indefatigable beta and source of ideas; and to [nekosmuse](http://nekosmuse.tumblr.com), as a belated birthday present.

  
He runs. He turns his back to the village, and he runs.

He knows the forest now, or at least he hopes he does. Exposed root, low-hanging branch, and everywhere falling flowers and rustling leaves. He flees through patches of sunlight and patches of shadow, and the echoes of his steps pursue him, crunching on twig and needle and catkin. He jumps over boulders, leaps past crevasses, and behind him the shouts grow louder and angrier and closer.

He gets a better grip on his sword, and the leather of his gloves creaks with every movement of his hands.

He forgets - forgets about the little houses clustered together, forgets about the faint tendrils of smoke wisping upwards into the bleak morning. Clouds rolling in from the sea, overtaking the bright blue, blanketing the valley in gray shadows. He forgets about the villagers and their determined faces and shaking hands.

He remembers a few things, however. Emma's hands, so small that even when she puts her fingers together she still can't circle his wrist, her pale skin a stark contrast to his scars. The look on Raven's face, as flinty as a child her age can manage, strangely similar to the grimace of an old soldier as he takes up arms once again. Armando carrying Alex in his arms, and the children clustered behind him.

He forgets about Charles, forgets his words as they roused the village. All he remembers is the flash of darkness in those blue eyes, the low rasp of Charles's voice, authority and worry in every line of him.

Someone is calling his name. There are voices shouting in the forest, and - faintly - distant, whistling birdsong.

Erik half-falls into a familiar small clearing and he only has a heartbeat to recognize the vivid shock of red hair flashing past him. He drops to his knees, hard, and he has just enough time to draw his sword, a loud shriek of metal against metal. A blade as long as his arm, moving rapidly toward his heart - he parries desperately, barely turns aside a killing stroke. A strip of cloth falls cleanly from his sleeve. There is no scent of blood on the air - there's no time for him to check whether he really is wounded or not; there's just enough time for him to dodge the next slash, the one meant for his throat.

He yells, and so does Jean, and it's all he can do to keep up with her fury, with the strength and speed of her whirlwind strikes.

He watches her dance around him, tracing out long deadly circles, a flurry of slashes and there is just enough light that he can follow the movements of her knives.

He knows that she's watching him, avid green eyes tracking his every movement. Knowing what he means to do just as soon as he begins the motion, a contemptuous smile on her face as she blocks him again and again. Clash and clatter, two knives against one sword - the sounds of the forest and of the distant waves and of the calling birds recede.

All he hears is his own blood pounding in his ears, his own harsh breaths. He hears Jean's laughter: low and lulling and lazy - and terrifying.

Once, he would have followed her to the ends of the earth. Once, he'd thought her smiles beautiful instead of horrifying.

Once he'd fought at her side, and she and Scott had fought at his.

Erik growls and whirls in, closer this time, and he flips out one of his own knives and - _wham!_ \- there is a soft cry, a sweet and strangely strangled laugh, and when he rolls to his feet and brings both sword and knife back up to guard positions, there is a deep gash trailing blood down the entirety of Jean's right arm.

He holds his breath - he hears a long, low musical note on the wind - he waits for her to notice he's drawn first blood.

After this, he knows, the real battle begins.

Jean tries to move her arm back up, and Erik watches in morbid fascination as her face, once beautiful crumples in pain. Scars twisting raggedly together, madness in her eyes. She hisses angrily - and she looks down, looks at the blood dripping from her fingers, vivid red against her grimy nails, against the grass at her feet.

And she looks up, and Erik takes a step back, from the manic delight in her eyes. A smile like hatred, a light in her eyes that can only be malice.

Erik tries to avert his eyes, tries to hide his horror, even as he gets ready to clash with her again. Attack her if he can, and defend against her counterstrike because he must.

Jean throws her head back and laughs: shattered, fragmented. And the forest seems to shriek back at her, seems to shriek _with_ her - except for a persistent thread of muted song.

Erik grits his teeth. There's nothing human in that sound - and he doesn't have enough time to finish the thought, he doesn't have enough time to think. He moves desperately to block and Jean is still screaming as she drops to the ground, heedless of her wound. She scuttles across the grass toward him, swinging her knife in long arcs, striking for his knees.

He backs away from her as fast as he can, and knows that if he turns his back on her it will be the last mistake he ever makes - she wants him to turn tail and run, because it's child's play for her to hamstring a moving opponent, even one as skilled at running as Erik.

Risk, risk, he thinks, and he backs into a tree and he weighs his options as fast as he can. He's down to just two. Run, and risk getting stabbed in the back; stay, and risk getting pinned down.

He clutches the knife in his off hand, tightly enough that he winces in pain as the bones in his fingers grind together. He's going to have to risk it, he's going to have to play his trump card.

This is a bad position to be throwing from - one Raven has already explicitly warned him against. But there's no time to climb, and he can't afford to turn away from Jean.

Erik closes his eyes, tries to catch his breath - and he lets the knife fly. He knows the throw is good, but there's no time to celebrate. As soon as he hears Jean snarl he's off again, running for his life again, farther and farther into the forest, until he can risk looking over his shoulder. Jean's maimed right arm hangs uselessly at her side, and the madness in her face is compounded with pain and hatred and bloodlust.

He pulls out a second knife and this time he lets her get within arm's reach. This time the odds are in his favor. His sword is an extension of his arm; he ripostes as best he can every time she attempts to stab him. Crash and whine of blades, the two of them springing at each other and then flying apart as a blow lands or a blade slashes past cloth and skin or scrapes against bone.

This is no duel, Erik thinks, as he ducks clumsily; out of the corner of his eye he sees Jean move in, close enough to draw blood. He manages to block her knife with his but the impact leaves him winded, just barely able to move away from her and raise his sword, wearily, back to middle guard position.

The movement pulls at muscle and bone and Erik catches his breath, quietly, painfully. The battle is starting to take its toll on him; he can feel blood on his skin. He can feel his wounds. Every collision leaves Jean bloody; every clash pushes Erik closer and closer to his breaking point.

He doesn't even know if he can walk away from this one - let alone keep fighting. He has to keep on fighting Jean until one of them falls - and Erik fervently hopes it won't be him.

It can't be him, not this time, not when people are depending on him to stay alive. He has to outwit Jean somehow.

The more he thinks about it - and thinking is just as tiring as fighting - the more confused he gets. How is he to take Jean out, even when she's already at a disadvantage? How can he fight her when he knows exactly how cunning and powerful and lethal she is, and at the same time stay within the boundaries of Charles's contract? How does he fight the killer who taught him how to kill?

Flash of his memory: Jean taking on several enemies all at once, a small squad of soldiers - some unlucky patrol or group of scouts, their faces younger than his own. Rapidfire movement and the screaming gets louder, her laughter rising like a mad silvery note. At the end of it she's got a body pinned down underfoot and the others are riddled with deep and precisely placed wounds. Not a one of them is left alive. Blank eyes staring up at the sky, mouths slack in shock and pain.

The bile rises in Erik's throat, as he remembers her beckoning to him immediately afterwards, as he remembers her lips against his, hot and demanding and taking. Hands on his shoulders splattered with blood and guts, holding him in place, even though he tries to quickly wrench himself away. Never an easy thing to do, not when she grips him around the throat and her other hand moves in a beckoning motion - and there's another body pinned against him, immovable weight against his back.

He remembers the nights of being used, passed from Scott to Jean and back again, until he was strung out on his need and theirs, until he was cast aside, every single time - and he's filled with shame and loathing; terrible terrifying rush of traitorous memory as his body responds against his will.

No.

He throws it off, thinks of being left to his death, and the desire transmutes itself into something he can feel, something he can use: fear and hatred.

Enough to push him back to his feet, back into the fight.

The next time Jean closes with him, Erik screams and wrenches away. He feels the blood flowing slowly in a spreading stain over his skin from a deep wound in his thigh, and he takes a slow breath. But Jean must have just missed the artery - he doesn't feel weak, he doesn't feel like he has to fall down.

Erik roars out a battle cry, he doesn't know the words, and he surges forward - he throws all his weight into his arm and shoulder and Jean shrieks in pain and outrage when he connects, right hook into her midsection, and the force of the blow throws her several feet away. Weight of the other knife in his hand, and he winds up and whips it after her, watches it fly as she falls. And then Erik is smiling, tight with revenge and satisfaction and pain.

Jean gets to her feet with difficulty, her face a blank mask of rage. The throwing knife is buried in her left shoulder, shaking as she trembles.

Erik attacks her again - only to be stymied by a terrific blow to the side of his head, he sees stars, and Jean hurls him to the ground but he knows what's coming next and so he watches her leap after him, hands hooked into vicious claws - and at the last moment he rolls backwards, clumsy with hurt.

Now he's safely out of range and he brings the pommel of his blade down on the back of her neck, hard - she crashes down into the grass at his feet, and he immediately kicks her in the ribs, and as soon as she turns over and curls in on herself he growls and plants one boot in her chest.

He picks up one of Jean's long knives, takes it in both hands and turns it point down. She screams again as he pins her in place, the blade shrieks against bone as he slams it home, into the wrist of her left arm. He yanks his knife out of her left shoulder - perhaps his satisfied smile widens when that gets him a pained howl, perhaps not - and drives it through the palm of Jean's right hand, that entire limb already a blood-soaked mess, flashes of bone-white through the deep wounds.

"You can stay there," he says, and steps away, out of her reach. "I hope you stay there. I'd kill you, but."

Unbelievably, Jean throws her head back and laughs, though there are tears tracking cleaner paths through the bruises and the blood-red ruin of her face. "Don't you stop now," she laughs. "I'm enjoying myself. We're just getting started."

Erik shakes his head, and the motion sends droplets of blood and sweat falling to the forest floor.

He doesn't trust her; he lost all faith in her early on and there's no way he's going to start trusting her again now. As soon as stab her in the throat, now, and let her bleed out here.

But the injunction he accepted from Charles stays Erik's mind and hand, and perhaps makes it a little easier to content himself with standing his ground. Eyes on her every movement, on her face - every twitch of pain, every scowl, every demented smirk.

Suddenly, there is a distant shout of pain - and Jean must recognize it because she shrieks back, her face contorting in renewed hatred.

And over the shouts, over Jean's rage, Erik can hear the birdsong again, triumphant rising call - and this time, he recognizes it for what it is.

Charles's signal, the one he said he'd send if he should succeed in his half of the work.

Something powerful and strange and painfully good surges up in Erik's breast, real enough to hurt, and he desperately wants to see Charles again, wants to know how he's managed to take out Scott, wants to hear that story.

Instead there's a rustling behind him, and it is a profoundly different sound from the whispering leaves above and around him.

Erik tenses, and tired as he is, he drops back into a fighting stance. He doesn't dare turn around. He can't look away from Jean as she writhes in her pain and in her rage.

_Be easy. It's me._

"I can't do that," Erik says. There is an insubstantial hand on his shoulder. He can see it out of the corner of his eye. The weight of it should have knocked him down, the weight of that presence and what it means, but somehow, he manages to stay on his feet. "Especially not when you're around."

_Your pride will get you killed some day._

"Today or tomorrow or when my hair has gone white. It's all I have left."

 _Wrong again. Always so wrong._ And that is when the boy in the cloak steps up, so Erik need only turn his head a little in order to see him, a darker shadow in the silent, dim light of the forest. _Someday you'll learn to listen._

"Not to you."

That gets him a dry whisper of a chuckle. _Have you called me to come for her?_

"No," Erik says. "You aren't really part of the plan."

_I am independent of all plans._

He thinks about it, and nods. "You are. But could I ask you to wait?"

_Ask. I will do it if I can._

"Erik! Erik? - Oh no," and Charles bursts into the clearing, and Erik watches in wonder and disbelief as those blue eyes sweep over him, sweep unseeingly over the shadow at his side, and he must really look bad because Charles is drawing and nocking an arrow and he looks like he's about to let it fly - at Jean. "What did she do to you?"

Erik shrugs, though every movement hurts, even breathing, even just staying on his feet. "Where do I begin," he says, dryly. He watches Jean struggle again against the blades pinning her down, and then she glares at Charles and begins to laugh again.

"Almost over, then," Charles says, and he comes to stand at Erik's other side.

"You're finished with yours?"

"I am. He'll bother no one, now."

"You broke your vow?"

"You didn't," Charles says, and he looks at Erik, and smiles. "And neither did I. I swear it, Erik."

"Making a mistake," Jean suddenly says, in that hoarse dead-voice rasp. "Leave me alive - leave him alive - and you will live to regret it."

"It's too late to tell me I'll regret my actions," Charles says, and now there is a thread of contempt darkening his words. "I do that with every breath. As for your...companion," and Erik watches the sardonic twitch to Charles's mouth, "I believe he won't be doing much for a long time."

Erik blinks at Charles's words, and looks at the flame-haired boy - his outline flickers for a moment, and then returns, and he seems to be more present now than he was just a moment ago. Those gray eyes of his seem to dance with an almost amused light.

"Erik?" Charles asks.

_Your comrade is right. The other is - bound, helpless, but alive._

Erik looks down when there is warmth on his wrist - Charles's fingers. "He is here, with me, right now," he says.

"Ah," and with the other hand Charles pantomimes the action of pulling a hood over his head. "The shadow you speak of. I...in a way, that's a relief."

"Because?"

"Because this way it's easier to fool myself into thinking I'm not doing this alone."

"You're not alone." And this time, Erik gives in to the impulse that has been prickling under his skin for a while, and he reaches for Charles's hand, though the movement makes him wince and hiss. "I'm here."

The fingers entwining Erik's are vividly real, more real than the pain striking down his every nerve. Rough skin, the unmistakable notches in Charles's fingertips - this is his right hand, the hand that holds the arrow and draws the bowstring back.

An almost comfortable silence descends. Charles's eyes are on Jean's struggling form for a while - until she sneers at him and then he looks away again.

 _I cannot tell,_ the boy murmurs suddenly, _if you are being cruel to her or if you are being kind. It seems to me you've - you've destroyed her. Should you not think about releasing her from this torment?_

"I don't know," Erik says. "I don't know how to tell if she has suffered enough. Does her torment equal mine?"

"Erik?"

He turns to Charles, and this time, he knows why Charles flinches back - though he doesn't let go of his hand, and for this Erik will always be grateful. "Long before I came here, I was broken - nothing left of me but fear and hatred. Nothing left to me but my sword and my knife."

He watches Charles open his mouth - whether to protest or cut him off or both, Erik doesn't know - and he holds up his free hand to forestall him. "I do not know how you can still believe that people can be good, when the little I know of your past inspires terror even in me, but believe me. There is nothing human in her," and he pauses, and Jean begins to laugh again, a demented pride in her eyes. "Or in her companion. Nothing good. I had known that for so long, and I could not find it in myself to put them down like the rabid dogs that they might as well have been."

Just one of the reasons why he has to live, Erik thinks, because he still has to atone for his mistakes, and that has to be one of the worst.

Charles opens his mouth, and, wearily, this time Erik thinks he'll let him say his piece - except that someone is screaming, someone very close by, and Erik drops back into a fighting stance and he doesn't have to look over his shoulder to know that Charles is right there at his back, ready to shoot.

The boy in the cloak begins to laugh, softly. _If I were you,_ he says, _I'd start running._

"Charles," Erik growls. "Run."

"How could you still think that I would leave you, Erik."

"Because I care that you get out of this one alive."

"And I care the same for you."

 _Run, I said,_ the boy says. _She's going to get up. You shouldn't be here when that happens._

Erik looks from the boy to Charles and then to Jean - and with a loud shriek of stressed steel he sheathes his sword, seizes Charles's sleeve, and whirls away. "Go, go," he shouts, urging himself on, urging Charles on. "Higher ground. Every advantage counts!"

"Higher ground - ? Then follow me," Charles says, as if Erik has a choice, as if there's any other path laid out at his feet, and he scrambles up a long winding slope, after those determined and frightened blue eyes. "Watch your feet."

Erik does so, and they run, and he sidesteps a series of deep crevasses without really thinking about them - the only thing on his mind is that he cannot be separated from Charles now. They have to be together and they have to stay alive.

Jean no longer surprises him, not really, not even with the near impossibility of getting up from those knives.

Truth be told, he knows she's capable of so much more. Of so much worse.

There's a hand on Erik's shoulder and he's being yanked down into the thick bushes - and once he blinks, once he gets a good look at the foot of the overhang, he realizes that he's watching the crooked forest path that they were just running over.

And Charles is on one knee beside him, an arrow nocked in his bow. He's nearly all the way to a complete draw. "Erik?"

"Charles."

"You're out of knives."

"No," and Erik allows himself a small smile, and he puts his hand in the small of his back.

"That's Raven's," Charles says.

"She gave it to me," Erik says, turning the dark-green weapon over in his hand. "I didn't want to accept it, because I thought I might lose it if I was forced to use it."

That gets Erik one of Charles's other smiles, this one close-mouthed and a little strained. "It's a good thing she was able to persuade you otherwise."

"Maybe this is how she planned to save our lives all along," Erik says, laughing softly.

There's a crash and a shriek in the undergrowth below them.

Erik stops laughing; he tenses and lifts himself partway off the grass. There's more rustling next to him and he darts a look over - and Charles is ready to loose, the black bow at full draw.

Erik can hear Jean's lumbering steps, her pained gasps; he can hear the soft creak of Charles's bow as it strains against the string; he can hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, just underneath his skin. "Ready when you are," he whispers.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Charles nod, once, a terse gesture - and then back just in time to catch Jean heaving into view, nightmare ruin of a beautiful face, eyes of a corpse. Somehow she has managed to avoid the first few deep fissures in the earth.

Erik gets to his knees, carefully, trying to stay in the shadows that are now protecting them. His hand over his shoulder, wrist loose and relaxed, fingertips carefully and lightly wrapped around the razor-sharp blade. This is his last throw - there will be nothing left of him after this - this is the throw that makes him win the prize or makes him lose it.

The prize is his life or his heart or his atonement.

And just on the tail end of that thought there's a bloodcurdling cry. This time the forest shrieks in protest against Jean's voice, birds screaming and the distant scrape of feathers and flight. She's trapped - wedged up to her thigh in a tight space at the end of a narrow and deep crevasse. Sprawled awkwardly and screaming for her life.

"So another falls," Charles whispers, and now Erik notices that the arrow nocked in the bow is trailing a long length of thin rope - and before he can ask what's going on, Charles is letting the arrow fly, and it lands an inch away from Jean's ribs, its rope tail trailing over her back and down to the tall grass.

 _Thock._ Another arrow, and the loose end is pinned down tightly, snugly, against her maimed arm.

"Just so," Charles murmurs. "Another one, I think, and then we can go down to her."

"Are you sure you should do that?" Erik says. He's still looking at Jean; he's still poised to throw. "You don't have to make a mistake for her to try to kill you again."

"Believe me, I've learned something from our last encounter," is the response. "And that's why it's a good thing that you're here with me, this time. You have to watch her for me. If she tries anything, then you...you ought to do what you must."

He's about to look at Charles because that's the last thing he expected the healer to say, when there's another shadow looming over Jean who is still thrashing weakly on the grass - and this is the one Erik recognizes all too well.

The flame-haired boy, sitting calmly back on his heels.

Jean - is reaching out to him. Her hand just barely brushes his - but when she does, her eyes fall closed, and she's slumping into the grass, easily, still bound, vibrant red hair falling to cover her ruined face.

 _You asked me to wait,_ the boy says, in his faint, faraway rasp of a voice. _I waited as long as I could. But this is where the waiting ends._

Erik gets to his feet, whirls, and he runs back down the slope like crashing rocks, branches whipping at his face and at his wounds, until he's standing over Jean's body - and it is a body. He doesn't want to believe it - but he confirms it by taking her wrist.

Charles rushes up after him, exclaiming, "You fool! Surviving all this, just to nearly kill yourself running! Just because you wanted - "

"She's dead."

That brings Charles up short. "Dead? How?"

Erik looks up, and nearly takes a step back.

The boy who's just claimed Jean is standing directly behind Charles.

 _Not here for him,_ the boy says, almost gently. _And I was never here for you._

The words are more than enough to stagger Erik - but he manages to stay on his feet. "But I'll see you again," he says, staring steadily over Charles's shoulder.

The boy nods. _Eventually. When that will be, I do not know, and even if I did know, it would not be my place to say._

Erik lets out a breath, at last. A proper breath, the first in what feels like hours. "So be it," he whispers, and briefly closes his eyes.

He looks back just in time to see the boy vanish.

Now only he and Charles are left, and the corpse that used to be Jean. Erik meets the healer's eyes easily. "You haven't broken your vow."

"I know I haven't, though it was a close-run thing. And twice in one day," Charles says, and he falls out of his tense stance, catching great gulps of air, bent over with his hands on his knees. "I don't...I don't ever want to have to do that again."

Erik winces. "I am sorry."

"You have nothing to apologize for," is the immediate reply. Charles is jerking upright, is once again taking his hands.

"I brought them here, isn't that enough?"

"Specters from your past, and I led them right to you - which means I had a part to play in that, too," Charles says, "didn't we agree on that already? Oh, Erik. And now it's done. Though I will have to check on Scott soon."

"I don't know if this," and Erik puts his hand on his sword, "will ever be done."

"I would be alarmed if you said you were going to give that up," Charles says, and he is, somehow, smiling. "Just because we got out of this one alive, doesn't mean your contract is done. Yes?"

Erik stares at him just a little longer, life and light in this unlikely place, the two of them standing over the body of something that had once been beautiful, something that had once been a woman.

He's had stranger endings, and worse beginnings.

"Coming?" Charles says, and this time, when he moves away and the hood of his cloak falls off, he doesn't move to pull it back up.

"Yes," Erik says, at last, and again he takes the hand that's offered - but this time, he doesn't let go.

**the end - and the beginning**  



End file.
